VBS $fields all evaluate to null in JobApplicationDetails

Summary:

I am attempting to write conditional logic for the JobApplicationDetails page using VBS business rules. While I can drive logic based on $user and $contextComponent values, any and all $fields values available in conditional logic evaluate to null. These values are present on the page itself and I can determine whether they should be hidden/visible within the business rules, but evaluating any of them in the conditional logic treats them as null values.

Does anyone know if this is bug, or intended functionality? If intended, is there a way to retrieve the values of $fields in another context, possibly creating a context component or variable that gets them after the page loads?